Mumbai Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation (MMRC) achieved its final breakthrough at Mumbai Central station on Wednesday. This completes the tunnelling work of the Colaba-Bandra-Seepz underground Metro 3 corridor.
“It is with great pleasure that I witnessed the final breakthrough today. It marks 100 per cent tunnelling of Metro-3 corridor. Tunnelling below Mumbai’s heritage precincts, in close proximity of old dilapidated buildings, existing Metro line, railway lines, water body with different and sometimes difficult geological conditions has been a daunting task,” said Ashwini Bhide, managing director, MMRC.
The section from Mahalaxmi Metro station to Mumbai Central station was the most challenging 837 metres of tunnelling. This includes Mumbai Central, Mahalaxmi, Science Museum, Acharya Atre Chowk and Worli Metro station which is one of the longest stretches of Metro line 3 corridor. Overall, the project has noted 76.6 per cent progress.
“We used advanced technology without compromising the safety of workers. This was a daunting task for the MMRC team along with general consultants, contractors and jumbo vehicles,” S K Gupta, director (projects), MMRC, said.
The 33.5-km-long Colaba-Bandra-Seepz Metro-3 project is the first underground corridor of the metro network coming up in the city. Of the 27 stations on this line, 26 will be underground. The station on ground will be Sariput Nagar at Aarey from where the coaches will go towards SEEPZ. The Metro 3 line is called Aqua line, its prototype coaches are 3200 mm wide and each can accommodate approximately 2400 passengers.
In the first phase from Aarey to BKC that is likely to be ready by December 2023, 96.2 per cent station and tunnel work are completed and almost 90 per cent of station construction is also completed.